The Review: This welcome short sees CSI Eddie trapped in a lift with two unsavoury characters. The three-hander plays out with the vividness and claustrophobic threat Barrett is so good at creating. You, the reader, are there in that lift.

Barrett’s characters are never two-dimensional, even the ‘bad’ guys eliciting sympathy. Eddie is as world-worn and blackly humorous as ever, a character with such depth.

This short is good. Very good, in fact. But it can’t escape being just a short story and it makes me long for Barrett’s longer work, where you really get under the skin of his grimy characters.